


I'm just afraid my life won't work that way

by crookedspoon



Series: [hcb] I will make you hurt [6]
Category: Justice League: No Justice
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Harley Quinn, Planet Destruction, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 23:39:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: After the destruction of Colu, Harley and Barry seek comfort in each other's arms.





	I'm just afraid my life won't work that way

**Author's Note:**

> Fills "planet destruction" at hc-bingo, because I probably won't come up with anything else to write for it, lol.
> 
> I blame [this panel](https://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/180963370500/alittlemirthandmayhem-no-justice-4-dont-touch). I shouldn't be allowed to read comics.

The thing Harley liked about being a villain is the lack of compassion. You could maim a couple hundred innocents and not let it get to you. But as a _reformed_ villain? That won't fly.

She's still a long way from being a hero, but she's been told empathy is good to have. Thing is, she's always had too big a heart to be entirely unfeeling, and it's always been a bother, because you know what?

Empathy sucks.

It's why she's here in the first place, hurting real bad.

"Tell me if we're going too fast," Barry breathes against her neck, hands gliding down her sides and back. She concentrates on that, and on the weird shelves digging into her hips, because it's easier to handle than the bottomless pit in her chest.

"This is perfect," she replies, fingertips stealing along his jawline and under his mask. She just needs to tangle her fingers into his hair – if he even has any. _Oh God, please let him have hair._

To her eternal relief, a blond fringe falls over his forehead as she slips off his mask. He looks up at her with big, innocent blue eyes.

Okay, maybe empathy ain't so bad. If neither of them had felt anything after their failure to save Colu, they probably wouldn't be here, trying to find comfort in each other.

"Dang, you're cute."

He smiles, but it's so damn sad, Harley almost wants to cry. But she can't, it's not allowed, not here, not ever, so she pulls him in for another kiss and guides his hands to her breasts, so close to where it hurts. He has to make it _stop._

His mouth is hot on hers and it's good, it distracts her from the anguish in her head, at least for the moment. She doesn't want to think about the panicked cries of the Coluans that fled before their planet's destruction. _What if they didn't rescue all of them?_

He crowds her harder against the wall as his tongue delves deeper into her mouth and the shelves dig into her back, but it's fine, it's good, she needs the discomfort. It takes her mind off the things she doesn't want to think about and centers her in the moment.

Her gloves flutter to her shoulder pads on the ground, and the opening zipper of her corsage cuts the breathy silence between them. The clatter of her belt follows, the tumble of her shoes.

"Need you," Harley whines, sliding off her leggings, slightly frustrated that he's still in full gear.

"You sure?" he asks, because he's a hero and heroes don't take advantage of others in their vulnerable emotional states.

Harley's not a hero, so she doesn't care about right and wrong. It's all relative, anyway. So Harley nods, pretty sure that even if he's taking advantage, she _wants_ to be taken advantage of. That's not so hard to understand, is it?

He's naked in the blink of an eye and her heart finally settles, even as it's tying itself in knots. _This_ is what she's been waiting for: heated skin under her fingers, unobstructed and accessible. Heated fingers on her skin.

Another time, she might have stopped to take him in, all of him, before taking what she needs but is not ready for. This is not that time. They don't have any. Not anymore.

She guides him to her core, and her head hits the wall behind her so hard she's seeing stars when he enters her. She stifles a cry, because this is what she wanted, and she can't let him have second thoughts about it, can't let him worry he might be hurting her.

Because if he did, he might stop, might call this off even, and that would hurt Harley more than the physical pain she's experiencing.

Harley knows pain. This is the good kind, the kind that makes everything else bearable, at least for the moment.

"Is this okay? Do I need to go slower?" he babbles out, almost too fast for her to make out the individual sounds. Once she does, it's both charming and aggravating, because he cares, but she doesn't want him to care, not about her at least. 

All she wants is their physical connection. The rest is irrelevant.

"Flash, sweetie," she says, still regrettably somewhere this side of letting go, "I like your voice, but unless you plan on talking dirty to me, I don't wanna hear another peep from you. I just need to feel you."

She wouldn't have expected him to laugh about this, but as soon as he does, she's weak for him. A guy with a sense of humor has that effect on her.

"It's Barry," he says, and kisses the edge of her jaw.

"Okay then, _Barry,_ listen close," she whispers into his ear. "I want you to fuck me until I forget my own name, do you think you can do that?"

His hips buck into her as he groans.

"Did I say something wrong?" she asks, tangling one hand in his soft blond locks.

"Depends," he says with a goofy smile, the first one that's not infused with pain since they'd been on the bridge and watched an entire civilization of refugees flee their home planet in a myriad of tiny spaceships. "How good is your memory?"

She relaxes onto him then, entirely weak and vulnerable. They share another kiss, and it's sweet this time and Harley feels something inside of her break.

She doesn't deserve something this good when she's helped bring death and destruction to a planet she didn't even know existed before she'd been kidnapped and transported there. Perhaps she's being too hard on herself in this instance, but she's done plenty of bad things for which she can probably never atone. Waller might give her the chance to wipe her record clean and walk out of Belle Reve a free woman, but that's cold-blooded and calculated bargaining. It doesn't have a thing to do with remorse.

And the Flash – _Barry_ – he's a member of the Justice League, the real goody two-shoes. The worst thing he's ever done was probably going over the speed limit.

As a Leaguer, he likely knows all about what she's done, and yet he was willing to give her the time of day when they had to work together as a team, was willing to speak a few kind words when their hearts were aching after their efforts hadn't been enough, and was willing to follow her here, to kiss her and comfort her, as though she is worth any of that.

Perhaps that is why it all boils down to empathy and compassion.

With it, he's giving her a chance to prove that she's better than she was, he's swaying her over onto his side and making her _want_ to prove that she can be better.

Even if she can't, he makes her believe it for the moment.

Perhaps empathy doesn't suck so hard, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Fear of Dying" by Jack Off Jill.


End file.
